I’m getting ready to rearrange my comic collection again and it got me curious, how do other people organize their collections?

I used to have everything alphabetized together, but as the collection expanded over the years, and as space limitations became a factor, I started to break the collection out in to “families.” So, I keep my Marvels separate from the DCs and independents. Within the Marvels, there’s the X-Section (Uncanny, New Mutants, Excalibur, etc.), the “main” section (Avengers & related titles, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Sgt. Fury/SHIELD, etc.), and the miscellaneous section (crossover books, short-run series, stuff that doesn’t fit in the other sections). That’s three islands of just Marvels. Yeesh!

In the main section, I generally have things grouped again. All the Spider-Books are together; Avengers are grouped with Cap, Iron Man & Thor; Defenders are grouped with Dr. Strange, Silver Surfer & Hulk; you get the idea. The same goes for the X-Section. The miscellaneous section is still alphabetized (although the anthology books like Marvel Comics Presents are off to the side). However, with the upcoming rearrange, I’ll have to break out the alternate reality stuff and make a new (fourth) section (and to do so, move the DCs and independents to another part of the basement, making them less accessible).

Also, because I’m crazy, I keep the Spider-books all mixed together, chronologically. So, a few issues of Amazing, an issue of Web, a few issues of Spectacular, some more Amazing, etc.

Also, I number them back-to-front, so the newest comics are at the front of the box.

I used to have a shelving system I built which long boxes were put into, so I could stack them against the wall and still have them be accessible, but now I use drawer boxes. No more need for shelves, because the boxes stack themselves and turn into a giant cardboard filing cabinet all by themselves!

I'm not buying new books anymore, and gotten rid of a lot of my floppies, but here's how i had it set up:

In an old comic rack (like the kind you would see on the front of a counter in a 7Eleven) I had 16 slots for new books, with the last 24 issues of series that i was collecting. When the number dropped below 16, i set aside a rack slot for finished limited series that i liked to re-read (Watchmen, LOEG, various Astro Cities, ect.).

On top shelf and second self of the first bookcase, large library magazine holders that held stuff that i was either reading that were past the 24 issue mark from the comic rack, or stuff that i was using for research (indexing and chronology work for my and later other websites).

Then, a large industrial shelf unit with three shelves housing long boxes (later, as age and physical abilities necessitated) short boxes for cancelled books, larger runs grouped together by family and sub-family (Justice League, Superman, Batman, Flash, GL, ect). I had a vertical file for rare or older books i didn't like to handle too much and a bottom drawer of the vertical file cabinet for Treasury-Sized books.

I use comic drawer boxes, and sort by year, title, then number and leave room for about 12 to 15 issues between years in case of anything I might have missed. This is a time consuming process, but allows me to have fast access and compress my collection to get the most use from the drawer boxes.